Christopher Dring investigates the downfall of a great.
On February 9th at 9:30pm Activision announced its Guitar Hero series was going on indefinite hiatus.
The news came as a shock, but was it really a surprise? Sales of Guitar Hero had collapsed. No longer the darling of UK retail, the series had become a nuisance, eating up precious in-store space with its oversized boxes that no-one wanted.
Its fall from grace was swift. Only two years ago the little title born in Boston, Massachusetts USA was a multi-billion dollar superstar.
A new Guitar Hero game looks set to be announced by Activision as Guitar Hero Mobile ads are appearing on Instagram out of the blue.
Should have been a console game, right now would have been a good time for a new Guitar Hero.
Time to revive all those popular franchises that are easy to monetize with micro transactions and nothing is easier than music games where they’ll charge you $5- 10 for 2- 5 songs.
CRKD and Gibson have teamed up to produce a completely new Guitar Controller for use in Rock Band, its successor Fortnite Festival, and Guitar Hero.
Phil Spencer talks candidly about missing out on both Destiny and Guitar Hero
Replies(1)
Microsoft bought all of Zenimax Media for 7 billion, while Sony paid 4 billion for Bungie. I think Microsoft got the better deal due to acquiring Fallout, ElderScrolls and Doom.
Yeah, I thought it out. I'm not sure you did. But since we are buddy's now, you're welcome.
"Clearly your parents didn't teach you"
You know you lost, when you have to resort to this tactic.
So you're saying that Microsoft has missed out on so many huge gaming franchise in the last 25 years from GTA exclusivity to guitar hero and destiny it's just laughable they had so many misses
Yea, but they're still 100 times more wealthy than Sony. I would say it worked out well.
That isn't because of Xbox though. This is a gaming page, not an I get supplemented by father Windows page
Microsoft's money has nothing to do with Xbox.
Xbox is a money pit to them they would love to ditch but are after some ROI first.
Let's face it, Xbox is like a red headed stepchild that steals from you to buy drugs.
MIicrosoft is NOT XBOX. The current situation illustrates this. And Microsoft wants its ROI.
@Bathyj and daddy Satya has just force admitted Phil to rehab.
you know why MS has so much money, and it aint cause of the gaming xbox branch.
so lets not kid ourselves.
@PhillyDownJawn not more profitable. More revenue with ABK acquisition but them going multiplat shows they are not making much profit
That's great for Xbox gamers ain't it that Microsoft are more wealthy than Sony. Is that really a argument use are using now lol?
Imagine me in my job. Arguing with a fellow security guard at another company. Hahah well the company I work for is worth £800m the one you work for is only work £600m!
Microsoft may have more money but Sony has the talented studios and the games to back up those studios.
Plus turning down Marvel too. Spiderman is only exclusive to Playstation because of that
Best deal deal in gaming must be when Sony bought Insomniac for 229 million dollars. They made over 800 millions on Spiderman for the ps4 alone. Thats just crazy!
another Interview?
how is he the only one who loves the spotlight as much as he does lol
Let's not forget he also famously passed on Spider-man, Genshin Impact and GTA3.
However it's almost kind of cute how he can keep that sh1t-eating grin and say he's a 'no regrets' kind of guy, especially when you think how much just these 5 titles could have swung the world in Xbox's favour instead of Sonys.
How he's kept his job I don't know, he must sure be keeping Papa Nadella's shaft warm somehow.
"But, but Gamepass, he introduced that!!!"
Yes he did, and now look at Xbox, all it's exclusives are coming to Playstation now rendering the platform obsolete.
Honestly, with that kind of track record, you can't convince me Spencer hasn't eaten it from the back in the name of self preservation. Probably unwashed...and at least twice.
That aside, my interpretation of everything here is Xbox has been mismanaged a bit too much and Nadella came down from his throne. The way it is now, I don't believe for a minute the multiplatform move was Spencer's idea. I don't even think the acquisitions was Spencer's work. At this point, I reckon he's got as much power in his role as Hunter Biden at a Ukrainian energy company.
You can never tell how things will turn out if he had said yes to those games. Xbox already has access to some great IPs, however, they hardly do anything with them or fail to deliver. It's also possible their presentation wasn't good at the time, and they made sure the next presentation was better.
I believe that part of being successful is releasing things in the right place at the right time.
Many major corporations have a story similar to passing on successful business ideas. Let us look at Sony Pictures for example. Back when Marvel went bankrupt, they had the opportunity to buy the entire Marvel for only $25 Million but turned them down. An unnamed big shot at Sony reportedly claimed that “nobody gives a shit about any of the other Marvel characters,”. They ended up taking Spiderman for $10 Million instead.
https://www.avclub.com/sony...
Fast forward to today, we can see what the Marvel brand has done for Disney. Is it possible the same success would have been possible had Sony acquired those IPs. We can't say that for sure and it is possible most of those IPs that are successful today may not have been used.
After 17 days of mass protests and rallies guitar hero finally decided the best thing to do was to step down
Doesnt make a diference never liked them never will.